Belgimagic Studios, S.A.
Belgimagic Studios, S.A. is a French-Belgian animation studio located in Brussels, Belgium. The studio was founded in late 1978 by two former Belgian-American animators at Green Mouse Animation, James 'Jim' Lombard and April Floraison. The studio's work is mostly well-known for its suprisingly fluid animation style and well-improved acting, reminiscent of both Disney and Warner Bros. of the 1940s and early 50s. For so far, it worked on a few shorts for the second season of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show, Darkwing Duck, Bonkers, The Ren and Stimpy Show in its Spumco years during the first season and the Games years during the fifth season, Mickey Mouse Works, House of Mouse, two episodes of Dave the Barbarian and many more. The studio also provided animation services for The Smurfs, produced by Hanna-Barbera. Belgimagic also has a partnership with Dupuis Audiovisuel on many of its TV projects, such as Papyrus and Spirou and Fantasio. History When Belgimagic Studios S.A. was founded in late 1978 by James 'Jim' Lombard and April Florasion as the studio opened in Brussels, Belguim. The studio began work on their first independent feature film entitled "The Romance of Delilah" (original Belgian release date: February 5, 1981, original French title: "La romance de Dalila") In mid-1989, after Green Mouse Animation's creative team saw the English dub version of "The Romance of Delilah", they began to have Belgimagic's animation team do overseas work for episodes of their 1990 animated TV series "Bancy and Company". The studio was soon commissioned by Green Mouse Animation to help launch the feature film/short film unit as a secondary unit for Belgimagic, besides the main unit. They were also responsible for doing outsourced work on episodes of TV shows for studios such as Green Mouse Animation, Disney, Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera, Nickelodeon, Spumco, Games Animation and others. Thus, Belgimagic Studios S.A. was expanded to over 200 artists and technicians, relocating Belgimagic Studios S.A. to their newly-built 5-story building site in Brussels, Belguim in the process, for all hand-drawn animation services on TV episodes/short films/theatrical feature films. Their first feature film contribution services with Green Mouse Animation was the 1995 Green Mouse Animation feature film "Bancy's Cross-Country Adventure", the second was the 2000 Green Mouse Animation feature film "Bancy's ToonTown Adventure" but their first (and only) feature film subcontraction services with Disney was the 1999 Disney/Pixar traditionally-animated feature film "The Romantic Beginning of Riley and Jordan" which was actually a theatrical feature-length remake of the "Riley and Jordan Cartoon Variety Show" series finale epsiode "Once Upon a Riley") Outsourced work Television series * The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show (second season only, 1985) * The Smurfs (1986-89, seasons 6-9) * Bancy and Company (1990-present, ink and paint by Fil-Cartoons during the first season) * Tiny Toons Adventures (2 segments, 1990-91) * Skylar and Friends (1991-present, ink and paint by PlaToon in the first season) * The Ren and Stimpy Show (first season at Spumco and fifth season at Games Animation, 1991-92, 1995-96) * Darkwing Duck (second season only, 1992) * Bonkers (1 episode, 1993) * Animaniacs (5 segments, first season only, 1993) * Timon and Pumbaa (1995-1999, animation services for seven 12-minute segments ("Roach Motel", "Big Top Breakfast", "Recipe for Disaster", "Dapper Duck Burgers", "Amusement Bark", "Russia Hour" and "The Big No-Sleep") throughout the whole series only. Also, electronic ink and paint/digital compositing services by both USAnimation, Inc./VirtualMagic Animation USA and Metrocel Animation Studios) * The Riley and Jordan Cartoon Variety Show (1995-1997, Seasons 2 and 3 only) * Cow and Chicken (second season only, 1998) * CatDog (1998, main animation services on four "Season 1" 12-minute segments ("All You Can't Eat", "CatDog Food", "Work Force" and "Nightmare") only, digital ink and paint/compositing services by Metrocel Animation Studios) * Mickey Mouse Works (1999, 7 shorts) * The New Woody Woodpecker Show (seasons 1-3, 8 shorts, 1999-2002) * What About Mimi? (2000-2002, main animation services (in contribution with Green Mouse Animation Australia PTY, LTD.) on four "Seasons 1-2" 24-minute episodes ("The Stepford Twins", "Get a Job" and "The Big Sleepover" and "Skiing is Believing") and main animation services on four "Season 3" 12-minute segments ("Club Mimi", Iron Guy", "Caddy Girl" and "Millionare Mogul") only, digital ink and paint/compositing serivces by VirtualMagic Animation USA) * Teamo Supremo (2002, main animation services on two "Season 1" 12-minute segments ("Who Invited the Birthday Bandit?" and "Grounded") only; digital ink and paint/compositing by VirtualMagic Animation USA) * House of Mouse (4 episodes, 2001) * Dave the Barbarian (4 segments, 2004) * The Emperor's New School (2006-2007, main animation services for four 12-minute segments ("Empress Malina", "Cart Wash", "Officer Kronk" and "Show me the Monkey") plus additional animation servics (in contribution with Green Mouse Animation Australia PTY, LTD.) on four 24-minute episoes ("Peasent for a Day", "The Mystery of Micchi Pachu", "Clash of the Families" and "A Giftmas Story") only) * The Replacements (2006-2009, additional animation services (in contribution with Green Mouse Animation U.K. Limited) on six 24-minute episodes ("Halloween Spirits", "London Calling" "The Rizzle", "You Got Schooled", "A Buzzwork Orange" and "Dick Daring's All-Star Holiday Stunt Spectacular V") then main animation services for six 12-minute segments ("The Jerky Girls", "Cheer Pressure", "Riley's Birthday", "This Means Justify the Trend", "Maid for K" and "The Revenge of Prince Cinnamon Boots") * Phineas and Ferb (2007-2015, animation services for six 12-minute segments ("Lawn Gnome Beach Party of Terror", "S'Winter", "Crack that Whip", "Oil on Candace", "Nerdy Dancin'" and "We Call It Maze") for the first and second seasons only. Also, animation/BG scanning, digital BG painting, digital ink and paint/compositing services by Green Mouse Animation U.K. Limited) * Milo Murphy's Law (2016-current, animation services for four 12-minute segments ("The Undergrounders", "The Doctor Zone Files", "Love Tobbagan" and "Perchance to Sleepwalk") and additional animation services (in contribution with Green Mouse Animation U.K. Limited) on one 24-minute episode ("Milo's Halloween Scream-A-Torium") for season one only. Also, maing animation/BG scanning, digital BG painting, digital ink and paint/compositing services also by Belgimagic Studios S.A.) Theatrical films * Bancy’s Cross Country Adventure (1995, animation services in contribution with Green Mouse Animation Hollywood Co., Inc., Green Mouse Animation Canada Co., LTD. Green Mouse Animation Australia PTY, LTD and Green Mouse Animation U.K. LTD., Uli Meyer Animation U.K. Ltd., Franck and Franck Studios, TFC Trickompany GmbH and A-Film ApS) * The Romantic Beginning of Riley and Jordan (1999, animation services in contribution with Walt Disney Animation Australia PTY, LTD., Green Mouse Animation U.K. LTD., A-Film ApS, Green Mouse Animation Hollywood Co., Inc. and Green Mouse Animation Canada Co., LTD.) * Bancy's ToonTown Adventure (2000, traditional animation services in contribution with Green Mouse Animation Hollywood Co., Inc., Green Mouse Animation Canada Co., LTD., Green Mouse Animation U.K. LTD., Green Mouse Animation France S.A., Green Mouse Animation Australia PTY, LTD. and A-Film ApS) Collaborating with Dupuis Audiovisuel Television series * Papyrus (1997) * Spirou and Fantasio (2006) Television specials *The Finance Smurf (1994, co-produced by I.M.P.S. and Dupuis Audiovisuel, animation production only, overseas animation by Rough Draft Korea) *The Raven's Horde (1996, co-produced by I.M.P.S. and Dupuis Audiovisuel, animation production only, overseas animation by Wang Film Productions) Independent work Theatrical films *The Romance of Delilah (original Belgian release date: February 5, 1981, original French title: La romance de Dalila, first independent feature produced by Belgimagic.) Tropes *'Animation Bump:' Most notable for their improved acting and fluid animation, such as The Smurfs. They managed to enhance the acting with subtle nuances and wild movement, predating Carbunkle's work on The Ren and Stimpy Show. *'Depending on the Artist:' *'Deranged Animation:' In most of their works. *'Disney School of Acting and Mime:' Their independent feature films were this. *'Limited Animation:' Subverted. Their work on The Smurfs, but their animation is surprisingly smoother and fuller than what the other studios were doing at the time. For the best part, they avoid the basic head-bob formula by having to move only the eyes and mouth expressively and smoothly. They would also do amazing head turns and shaking when someone says "yes" or "no", or probably do it silently. Most of their works avoid it, however. *'Medium Blending:' *'Off-Model:' Their work on The Smurfs, in which they added the principles of squash and stretch and overlapping actions to enhance Hanna-Barbera's flat on-model limited animation style. This, in return, made the animation even better. *'Signature Style:' *'The Renaissance Age of Animation:' The studio was this trope when it began doing outsourced animation for both American and Canadian studios. Trivia * The timing, pacing and theatrical quality of the work of the traditional animators at Belgimagic Studios S.A. kinda looks familiar to the classic Disney feature films (1937-2011), Don Bluth's work (1979-present) and all three Amblimation movies (1991-1995) but actually brilliant theatrical quality on the traditionally-animated content they did at Belgimagic Studios S.A. for goodness sake! * Staring in the middle of 1989, after some of the animators have seen "Oliver and Company" at a theater in Belgium, have came up with an idea to combine 3D comptuer animated elements (such as boats, ships, planes, trains, automobiles, some backgrounds and props of any kind) with 2D traditional hand-drawn character animation and, in doing so, they bought a set of four SGI Iris computers, four Calcomp digitizing tablet boards, four large-format "Hewlett-Packard" pen plotters (with boxes of replacement pen plotter ink cartridges) and "Wavefront Preview" software for a new team of four computer animators to create templates on paper in pencil lead, pen ink and ruler then digitize into a 3D polygonal wireframe models (one set of templates at a time for one 3D polygonal wireframe model at a time) on "Preview" then animated on "Preview" then rendered as drawings on animation paper (frame-by-frame) using each of the four pen plotters and the traditional animators used the plotted black polygonal CG animation outline drawings (frame-by-frame) as underlayers to combine with the character animation drawings (frame-by-frame) ontop of the CG animation drawings as overlayers and when they first tested the concept of combining 3D computer animation with 2D traditional hand-drawn character animation in the first six episodes of "The Bancy and Company Show", the 2D traditional/3D CGI combinations were proven a lot of a sucess. In the middle of 1993 the computer animation crew expanded to eight more CG animators (marking a total of ten instead of four) and they upgraded to newer SGI computers (from 1993 until 2005) and the sofware options of "Alias PowerAnimator" (from 1993 until 1998) and older versions of "Autodesk Maya" (1998 until 2005). Currently the CGI animators use iMac dekstop computers and Windows PC desktop computers and newer version of "Autodesk Maya" software and large-format printers from 2006 to today. * From 1978 until Early 2001, the ink and paint artists at Belgimagic Studios S.A. photocopy animators' drawings onto clear acetate sheets called "cels" then the checkers checked for areas to have colored outlines via hand-inking tecniques then the cel painters paint each of the acetate cels on the back with their very own cel paint pallette (same pallettes as Green Mouse Animation, Bill Melendez, Disney, Spumco, Universal Cartoon Studios, Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros.) using only three cel paint brands known as "Cartoon Colour Company, Inc.", "Chromacolour UK" and "Art Color Products". In 2001, they switched to computers and digital ink and paint software starting with SGI computers and the software choices of both "Toon Boom Opus" and "Cambridge Animo" from 2001 until mid-2005 then Windows Vista/7 desktop computers and iMac computers and a 2005 version of "DigiCel FlipBook Pro" from late 2005 until mid-2012 then they currently use newer iMac desktop computers and newer Windows 8/8.1/10 desktop computers and the current versions of "DigiCel FlipBook Pro" from late 2012 to today. * From 1992 until 2000, Belgimagic ink and paint supervisors originally had the electronic ink and paint/digital compositing services for some "pre-2001" TV episodes, pre-2001 theatrical short films and Pre-2001 theatrical feature films outsourced to electronic ink and paint/digital compositing service companies known as USAnimation (1992-1996), Virtual Magic Animation USA (1996-2000), Cambridge Animation Systems LTD. (1994-2000) and MetroCel Animation Studios (1992-2000) and this was before Belgimagic Studios S.A.'s ink and paint department switched their analog equipment (I.E., xerox cel photocopying systems, cel paints, inks, paintbrushes, crow-quill fountain pens and acetate cels) to digital ink and paint equipment such as computers, line-tester animation camera stands, large-format autofeed scanners and 2D digital ink and paint software and still in use from 2001 to Today. * For long since 1978, the background artists at Belgimagic Studios S.A. used tons of bristol background board sheets and cel paint (the same cel paint brands as the ones applied on the back of each in every cel) and airbrushing techniques (for example if any airbrushing is needed neccesary for other backgrounds) from 1978 until late 2006. Staring in the beginning of 2007, the background artists have gone tradigital by having to scan the BG layout drawings into computers to be digitally painted (like an analog background painting) in "Adobe Photoshop" software (instead of paintbrushes, airbrushes, cel paints and background bristol board sheets) from 2007 to today. * The traditional animation artists at Belgimagic Studios S.A. did a fantastic job on the outsourced 2D traditional animation services for Disney on TV shows that Belgimagic Studios S.A. did the outsourced animation services (for example; the second season of "Darkwing Duck", seven 12-minute segments of "Timon and Pumbaa", one episode of "Bonkers", seven shorts for "Mickey's Mouse Works", two episodes for the first season of "Teamo Supremo", four episodes of "Mickey's House of Mouse", four 12-minute segments of "Dave the Barbarian", four 12 segments (full-time) plus four 24-minute episodes (in contribution with Green Mouse Animation Australia PTY, LTD.) of "The Emperor's New School", six 24-minute episodes (in contribution with Green Mouse Animation U.K. Limited) plus six 12-minute segments (full-time) of "The Replacements", four 12-minute segments of the first and second seasons of "Phineas and Ferb", four 12-minute segments (full-time) and one 24-minute episode (in contribution with Green Mouse Animation U.K. Limited) of "Milo Murphy's Law") ** They even did a fantastic job doing outsoursed 2D traditional animation services for Nickelodeon which are only the first (with Spumco) and fifth (with Games Animation) seasons of "The Ren and Stimpy Show" and four 12-minute segments for season one of "CatDog". However, in the Season 1 "CatDog" episode "All You Can't Eat", the CGI animators at Belgimagic Studios S.A. did a fantastic job at the CGI floor tiles in a scene where CatDog succed on sneaking into Taco Depot to get to the all-you-can-eat taco buffet near the end of the episode. Category:Fanfic Content Category:Foreign animation studios